


Dean's Song

by PadaWinBaby



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gen Fic, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 18:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadaWinBaby/pseuds/PadaWinBaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam catches Dean singing a few times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dean's Song

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing here, except the story concept. Rated for the tiniest bit of language.

He's just getting out of the shower the first time he catches Dean singing. It's the sirens' song from the movie they'd watched the night before, some kind of perverted lullaby type thing.

_Go to sleep, little babe  
Go to sleep, little babe  
You and me, and the Devil makes three  
Don't need no other lovin' babe_

His voice is low and smooth, drifting through the tiny motel room like an errant summer breeze while he fiddles with the sad excuse for a stove in the corner. Sam takes his time getting dressed, knowing that Dean will purposely drop out of tune the minute he realizes Sam can hear him.

He figures that at some point in his life, Dean had been teased for his singing voice, because he liked to pretend he couldn't sing at all when Sam distinctly remembers his older brother singing him to sleep when they were little. Even years later, Sam was still of the rather strong opinion that Dean's version of Hey Jude was the best.

Just as he thought, Dean drops suddenly and rather violently out of tune a moment before he steps into the tiny wannabe-kitchenette space, stopping all together when Sam pulls up a chair at the miniscule card table and clears a space in their research materials for breakfast.

*

Sam is struggling out of a nightmare when he finally hears Dean sing again. He had been drowning in a sea of blood, clinging to Dean's lifeless body, when suddenly his head was filled with the familiar melody of a song he hadn't heard properly since his childhood. He drifts slowly into consciousness, holding tight to the words and the memories associated with them.

_And any time you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain  
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders  
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool  
By making his world a little colder_

It takes Sam a moment to register anything other than Dean's singing, the rest coming to him in stages. First is the proximity of his voice, then the tilt of the bed beneath Dean's weight where he sits perched on the edge, and finally the brush of Dean's calloused hand as it skims over Sam's face, neck, and hair, petting him. Memories of all the nightmare-filled nights of their shared past ride the current of the song, filling Sam up like an empty cup. He takes a deep breath and turns ever so slightly into his brother's touch, and just like that Dean is gone, pulling away quickly and moving away from the bed, the song dying on his lips. Sam sighs and turns over, disappointment tangling up in his exhaustion until it resembles something like annoyance, and pulls the covers up over his head.

*

Dean is goofing off while he's putting gas in his baby the next time Sam hears him sing. Sam had been shooed off to the diner across the street the moment they'd pulled up to the filling station. Dean was in an uncommonly good mood, too, if the cranking of the radio as Sam scrambled out of the car was any indication. Sam sees him dancing around like an idiot through the diner window long before their food is ready, performing for the pedestrians milling along the sidewalk.

Sam hesitates a moment when he comes out of the diner; Dean's back is to him at the moment, singing over the top of the Impala to a little girl with copper curls in the backseat of a beat up old Mustang. Sam recognizes the song, one that sounds suspiciously like Dean had gone back in time and written it himself.

_Nobody gonna take my girl, I'm gonna keep her to the end  
Nobody gonna have my girl, she stays close on every bend  
Ooh, she's a killing machine, she's got everything  
Like a moving mouth, body control, and everything_

Sam's halfway across the street when Dean turns back his way. He continues his performance, though he's no longer singing, just mouthing the words, and his shoulders are tense. Sam raises his eyebrows at his brother, giving him the expected look of concern for his mental health, but inside he's sad that Dean doesn't trust him with his real voice.

When they get in the car and head out to their motel, Dean won't meet Sam's eye.

*

One thing that's never been a secret is that Dean loves to hum when he's working on the cars at Bobby's during long, tedious stretches of research. However, this time, when Sam comes out to bring him more beer (Dean had texted him, complaining about the lack of beer and why couldn't Sammy read his goddamn mind about these things, wasn't his need for cold beer in the heat at least as important as whatever the hell Sam and Bobby were scouring the books for this time), Dean's singing. Actually out-loud singing, not humming along or mumbling the words in time to whatever he's doing under the hood.

_I got a tortured mind  
And my blade is sharp  
A bad combination  
In the dark_

It's not a song Sam recognizes right off, mostly because it's more recent than most of the stuff Dean forces him to sit through on their drives, but he kind of likes it. It seems like Dean's kind of thing, even if it doesn't fall immediately into his favored genre. Personally, Sam wishes Dean would listen to more stuff like this, maybe give his mind a break from all the mullet rock.

However, Sam doesn't remember his brother ever really listening to anything other than mullet rock, not even when they'd gone to the Roadhouse on a regular basis, which gets him wondering where Dean had picked up the song he's singing. This bothers him, probably more than it should. Had he listened to it with Lisa? Or had it been with Cassie? Maybe he'd picked it up while Sam was at Stanford, or that time Sam had died. Had he heard it on the radio on his way back from Hell? The possibilities buzzed around in Sam's head until he was sure he would go insane.

Then Dean nodded in time to the drums and started in on a new song, which drew Sam's attention to the little white wire dangling from Dean's ear. His face immediately broke into a relieved grin; Dean had finally caved and was using the iPod that usually rode under the back edge of passenger side seat. Sam feels unconscionably proud of his brother for a moment, his heart swelling at the idea of Dean taking a step into the future. That bubble of hope is punctured, however, when Sam steps up to the side of the rust bucket Dean is fiddling with, offering his brother a fresh beer, and hears the opening riff of Metallica's Enter Sandman leaking faintly from the headphones. Some things will never change.

*

Sam is in the hospital. He knows this because everything smells like antiseptic and there is a persistent and vaguely annoying beeping coming from somewhere near his head. He is cold. From head to toe, he is cold. And it's dark. Too dark. He tries to open his eyes, but the lashes stick, and the tiny muscle movements make something tickle across the tops of his cheeks. His hand comes up, probing at his face. Gauze. There is gauze on his face, covering his eyes, extending up his forehead a ways. And his hair is gone, nothing but dense, uneven stubble in its place.

What had happened?

He remembers being in the car, driving out to a new Hunt. He'd looked over at Dean, smiled at some stupid joke, then...nothing. There is a big, yawning blankness there that scares Sam to death. Had they gotten into another car accident? Was Dean okay? As if a door has been opened, the questions flooded in, inundating him quickly. He whimpers.

Suddenly, there are warm, rough hands on Sam's face, what little is exposed beneath the gauze, and Dean is whispering to him, shushing him, reassuring him. Sam's hands grope blindly until he his hugging his brother, clinging to the solid weight of the one thing in the world that matters to him at least as much as his own survival, if not more. His whimpers become sobs, the unabashed kind that Dean would have frowned at in any other situation, the kind that probably hadn't been let out since Sam was a baby and Dean barely more than that. Dean's hands rub gentle circles on the bare skin of Sam's back where the hospital gown hangs open behind him, and he rocks them both back and forward just the tiniest bit. Dean is crying, too. Sam can hear it in the way his voice cracks over his name, though he is obviously trying to be the strong older brother and everyone knows that the strong older brother doesn't cry.

It takes Sam a minute or two to cry himself out. Even when he's done having hysterics, he doesn't let go of his brother. Rather, he clings tighter, now that the tears aren't in the way. There is a long moment of silence, or as near to silence as you can get in a hospital, where Sam focuses on breathing while Dean rubs and rocks, rubs and rocks. Then, “Dean, w-will you sing to me?”

Dean doesn't answer for a long moment, so long that Sam fears that it means he won't do it. But then, ever so softly, Dean begins to sing. It's so low at first that Sam almost doesn't hear it, but then Dean clears his throat a little and it gets louder.

_I heard that you settled down  
That you found a girl and you're married now.  
I heard that your dreams came true.  
Guess she gave you things I didn't give to you._

_Old friend, why are you so shy?  
Ain't like you to hold back or hide from the light._

_I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited  
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.  
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded  
That for me it isn't over._

_Never mind, I'll find someone like you  
I wish nothing but the best for you too  
Don't forget me, I beg  
I remember you said,  
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,  
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,"  
Yeah._

_You know how the time flies  
Only yesterday was the time of our lives  
We were born and raised  
In a summer haze  
Bound by the surprise of our glory days_

_I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited  
But I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it.  
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded  
That for me it isn't over._

_Never mind, I'll find someone like you  
I wish nothing but the best for you too  
Don't forget me, I beg  
I remember you said,  
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."_

_Nothing compares  
No worries or cares  
Regrets and mistakes  
They are memories made.  
Who would have known how bittersweet this would taste?_

_Never mind, I'll find someone like you  
I wish nothing but the best for you  
Don't forget me, I beg  
I remember you said,  
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."_

_Never mind, I'll find someone like you  
I wish nothing but the best for you too  
Don't forget me, I beg  
I remember you said,  
"Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead,  
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead." >_

_**FIN.**_

**Author's Note:**

> The songs are, in order of appearance: Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, and Gillian Welch; Hey Jude by The Beatles; Highway Star by Deep Purple; Sinister Kid by The Black Keys; and Someone Like You by Adele.


End file.
